Getting ready for the 18 de Septiembre

For this to make sense, you should know that the 18th of Spetember is the Chilean national holiday. Picture the fourth of July, but a way bigger deal. The whole month of September gets devoted to being Chilean, people put flags on their cars, on their houses (apparently it's against the law not to) and act Chilean. From what I can tell, this involves dancing cueca and going to asados. Last weekend my host family went to visit my host dad's grandma in Totoral, a village in the Chilean countryside. Yes, it is as cute and rustic as that description makes it sound. There we ate a ridiculous amount of grilled meat. I'd been under the impression that asados were like barbeques with the salads and side dishes etc. but it turns out that they are comprised of grilled meat. Period. After eating, my host-mom helped me improve my cueca (the Chilean national dance) because I was going to dance it in an act at my school on the 16th. Don't think that because Chile is a Latin American country that it's national dance is anything like tango or salsa (which by the way just means sauce) because it's not. Cueca is a quirky flirtation. Frankly, I can't describe it. Go google it if your curious. My cueca did get to the point where it was passable, and dancing it in front of the entire school was actually fun! I think I'm growing to like the spotlight. If you're wondering why I ended up dancing the Chilean national dance in an act, you're not the only one. (I'm still wondering this myself.) All five of us exchange students had to dance and they partnered us with Chileans who are actually good at dancing to make up for our lack of knowledge. All and I'll I'd say it turned out pretty well. I also ended up playing the base for a song that my class was performing a Mapuche dance to. (In case your curious, yes I did feel cool, despite my flowery cueca dress). Speaking of which, everybody with a few exceptions came to school dressed like huasos (chilean cowboys?) today. Why don't we do anything like this in the US? To wrap this up let me mention that my family is going to la Serena for the weekend of the 18th where we will (hopefully) eat empanadas, go to an asado, and dance cueca.